Battery issues continue plaguing Max Verstappen at the Chinese Grand Prix, as the four-time world champion faces a persistent issue for Red Bull when the lights go out during the 2026 Formula 1 season.
The 28-year-old qualified eighth at the Shanghai International Circuit on March 14 but his efforts were undone instantly on the Sunday as his RB22 bogged down and dropped him from towards the front of the grid almost to last.
He then had to fight his way back through the field and almost became trapped in a duel between Haas, Racing Bulls and Alpine, before eventually closing in on Oliver Bearman for fifth in what would have been a valiant recovery effort.
However, he then had a gearbox issue and had to limp back to the pits to retire from the second race of the year, marking a disappointing conclusion to one of the worst weekends since the 2018 Monaco GP.
“It was expected,” Verstappen said to media, including Total-Motorsport.com, of his Chinese GP. “But again, the start of course was a big problem, the same as yesterday.
“The rest of the race was again the same as yesterday, just a lot of graining, can’t push, terrible pace, terrible balance like yesterday. So, yeah, just a very bad weekend for us.”
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The poor getaway was not an isolated event for the Dutchman either, as the same issue had struck him during the Sprint Race and forced him into another fightback effort, of which he came up shorty by finishing ninth and missing the final points spot.
He had another underwhelming launch at the Australian GP from 20th, after a rear axle failure sent his RB22 spinning into the barriers in Melbourne in qualifying, as he dropped behind other cars near the back.
Although that one was far more reasonable than his two efforts in China, it remained uncharacteristic for a man known for nailing his starts – clean getaways being foundational to the majority of his 71 Grand Prix wins across his career.
So, what exactly is the issue plaguing Verstappen at race starts as he continues to bleed places away for Red Bull as soon as the five red lights go out to get the action underway?
“Here the two problems were the same. I just have no power. As soon as I release the clutch, the engine is not there,” Verstappen said, of his starts in China from March 13-15, pointing to the power unit as the issue.
Isack Hadjar seemingly unaffected by same Red Bull issue
However, the issue does not seem to translate to the other side of the Red Bull garage – at least when the lights go out and cars enter the initial launch phase as Isack Hadjar almost took the lead in Australia.
In China he shot straight past his more experienced colleague too, as the French-Algerian driver seems to understand how to prepare the engine and to drop the clutch better than his multi-champion teammate.
Yet there is only so much he can do too as a battery issue prevented him from beating George Russell and Kimi Antonelli into Turn 1 in Australia, indicating that the issue remains more complicated than a simple difference of skill.
“We knew that just getting onto the grid in Melbourne with our own PU [Power Unit] was a major achievement in itself,” team principal Laurent Mekies said in China. “And it would have been naive not to expect we would encounter reliability issues.
“We had to retire Max [on Sunday] because of a coolant fault. However, this was not our only issue as overall, performance-wise, our package showed some significant shortcomings.
“However, we have learned so much over the past few weeks, and I expect that we can be more competitive from the next round in Japan.”
